Learning with Technology

Month: March 2025

Peer Response – Kate Nelson’s Blog Post 3

March 9, 2025 / / 0 Comments

https://katenelsonstudies.opened.ca/blog-post-3-2/

Hi Kate!

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on reducing barriers to learning success while learning about common species of trees in British Columbia. I can imagine how engaging a nature walk would be to many young learners. At the same time, you are right that some learners might not be able to do a walk due to access or mobility challenges. I also wonder if these same trees would be in all areas of B.C. The alternative accesses to information you describe seem like good options. I particularly like the virtual walk, which would allow students to still observe leaves and cones in the context of a larger environment and give students some control over their point of view, allowing them to turn leaves over, etc.

Along with providing options for access to content, you have created choices for building and demonstrating knowledge. Thank you for sharing your thoughtful design. I enjoyed reading about it.

Post #4

March 9, 2025 / / 0 Comments

In this video, students are not forced to respond in any way. However, they are likely to do the things suggested by the video. For example, the video advises viewers to understand and look at nutrition labels. Learners who didn’t understand these lables would then be likely to feel a lack of knowledge and, when presented with an opportunity to learn more about nutrition labels, want to do so. Learners who do understand nutrition labels would be likely to pay more attention to them in the future.

After watching this video, we as instructors could give a small amount of explanation about the meanings of nutrition labels and how to read them. We could then ask students to look at food labels on several products from their homes to compare a variety of specific nutrients. For example, students could find three items that have relatively high amounts of calcium compared ot the daily recommended intake, and three items that have relatively low amounts of calcium. This would help students to develop their ability to understand and apply their understanding of nutrition labels. In an online course, they could submit images of labels with written or video documentation of their findings.

Each student could get feedback by comparing their findings with two others and selecting 2 – 3 foods within the group as generally the most nutritious.  They would, as a group, write a few sentences to defend their choices, using information from the nutrition labels.  Both the written justification and relevant food labels would be submitted. Online, they could use meeting technology such as Zoom to discuss as a group; they could use Google Docs to collaborate on the written justification; everything could be submitted on a Learning Management System such as Brightspace.

This activity would be manageable in terms of work for us, the instructors.  We could check to see that nutrition labels had been understood correctly by the group and the written justification demonstrates that the students have thought about the information.  Depending on the level, depth, and length of the course, the work would be manageable and worthwhile for students as well.  A shorter course might call for briefer and less time-consuming activities, while something longer would allow enough time to look more closely at nutrition labels. For larger numbers of students, perhaps pre-selected nutrition labels would make less work for the instructor since there could be less variation in information for students to work with.

Peer Response – Experiential Learning

March 2, 2025 / / 0 Comments
Post 2

Thank you for sharing your reflections on Experiential Learning. This is yet another way of giving students the opportunity to actively engage with their learning and make better meaning of the knowledge and skills they acquire.

I agree that there is nothing like experience to really understand the impact of following a bad diet. It seems to me a key idea to experiment with these in a “controlled, reflective context,” as you note in your fourth paragraph. In order to avoid putting students in situations where they are causing their bodies lasting harm, I wonder what kinds of controlled exercises could be proposed to illustrate the the incorrectness and, sometimes, dangers of some of the myths that can be found on social media.

Peer Response – Open Pedagogy

March 2, 2025 / / 0 Comments
Post 2

Ethan, thank you for sharing your research and experience with open pedagogy. I am very interested in the structure of your schooling where you got the opportunity to engage deeply in your learning interests. It must have been wonderful to have such strong ownership of your learning. When transitioning to a more traditional high school model, what did you find difficult?

I agree that health and diet is very personal, requiring some trial and error. I like your idea of integrating student-generated content, and developing peer-reviewed meal plans aligns with Design Thinking as well. Let’s talk!

Post 3 – Inclusive Design

March 1, 2025 / / 1 Comment

Blog Prompt: Choose one (or more) of your planned learning activities from your Blueprint and identify any barriers to student success. How can you alter or adjust your current plan to reduce those barriers?

Students to any course bring with them unique needs, abilities, and history.  This diversity, if not addressed, can lead to a large proportion of students having trouble engaging fully in learning within the course.  Universal Design for Learning (UDL), a framework created by CAST to address a diversity of student needs based on what is known about the human brain, offers guidelines to support student learning in a number of ways (CAST, n.d.).  Based on these guidelines, we can design multiple options for engagement, representation, and action & expression in order to increase access, support the learning process, and support executive functioning.

One of the planned learning activities we have in our Blueprint is to read an article and a webpage about healthy food choices.  Barriers to reading could include difficulty with language, literacy, or vision.  To reduce these barriers, we could encourage students to use translation or text-to-speech technology if they choose.  We could also offer video or podcast alternatives which cover the same content.  If the course is given in person, we might investigate to find out if any student needs alternatives for large print.  We could also offer the article and/or webpage in options written for multiple levels of English comprehension.  Finally, we could ensure plenty of pictorial support of the text, with captioned descriptions.

Additionally, there may be misunderstandings in the students’ conceptions of healthy eating, which could impact access due to bias and distracting ideas.  CAST UDL Guidelines suggest creating a supportive culture by exploring how biases can impact learning (CAST, n.d.).  This could be done in a short introduction to the reading, video, or podcast, acknowledging possible preconceptions or myths about healthy eating.

Another barrier could be difficulty in transferring learning from the article, website, video, or podcast, to application in meal planning for themselves.  We can support this by including explicit references and connections to this learning in future assignments.  We could also survey students ahead of time to learn about the foods they like so that we can use relatable examples to help make sense of the content during instruction.

References

Attributions

Image Attributions

© 2025 Learning with Technology

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑